1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a device control system for controlling the operation of home devices such as televisions, video decks, and other audiovisual equipment; telephones, personal computers, and other information/telecommunications equipment, and air conditioners, refrigerators, and other household appliances, through the use of a remote control unit or other operating terminal located either within the home or outside it, and for using wireless or wired information/telecommunication technology to make use of information stored on a home server or acquired from an external source via the home server.
2. Description of Related Art
Remote control units for the remote operation of home devices most often have a one-to-one correlation with each device (that is, there is one unit for each device), meaning that a plurality of remote control units is needed to operate a plurality of devices. For this reason, integrated remote control units have been proposed that store the signals sent by a plurality of remote control units, so that a plurality of devices can be controlled by a single operating terminal. While this integrated remote control unit does allow control of each device while its user is inside the house, it does not allow control of each device from outside of the house.
A configuration of a device control system is conceivable such that televisions, video decks, and other home audiovisual equipment; telephones, personal computers, and other information/telecommunication equipment; and air conditioners, refrigerators, and other household appliances are connected via a home network, and each device is controlled by a device control server (home server) interconnected with this home network. In such a case, to order to access from outside the home, a connection is made to the home server via the network; authentication of the operator becomes necessary to prevent unauthorized access by a third party. One way to prevent unauthorized access by a third party would be to have a password for operating each device chosen in advance, and then to authenticate by receiving input of a password from an operating terminal from which instruction for the operation of a device has been made.
There are also cases where the home server includes such elements as storage means for storing acquired various types of information and external connection means for providing various types of information acquirable from the outside over the external network. There will be cases where it will be necessary to authenticate and specify a user before providing these various types of information. For example, image content deemed inappropriate for underage viewers requires determination of whether or not output should be allowed before the image content is selected and outputted to a television. In such cases, the input of a password serving as authentication information for identifying a user is required; by determining whether or not the password inputted by the user is correct, a device such as a television is controlled and the output of the content is controlled.
In order to distinguish between cases where access is from within the house where the devices are located and cases where access is from outside the house, a different password may be set up for each operating terminal. Alternatively, a different password can be set for each piece of content or type of content. By so doing, even if one password was learned by a third party, the effect that access by that third party has on other parts of the network can be restricted, and the damage caused by unauthorized access can be kept to a minimum.
If, in the device control system as described above, user authentication is required when accessing the home server, whether from inside or outside the house, that means that, inconveniently, a password has to be input each time access is made. Further, if only a password is used for authentication, in case a third party finds out the password, the third party can make unauthorized access.
Periodically changing the password does have the effect of restricting unauthorized access. However, this does not completely eliminate the threat of unauthorized access; and furthermore, changing a password requires a user to perform an involved process, and it also increases the possibility that a user will forget a password. If different passwords are set for each of the operating terminals from which access can be made, or if different passwords are set for each type of content and each available service, users will have to remember all the different passwords, and there is a good chance that they will forget some.
By recording passwords in a remote control unit or other operating terminal, the task of inputting passwords can be eliminated, but if a third party learns these passwords, there is no way to prevent unauthorized access. Particularly, unauthorized access could lead to private household information being extracted or modified. In that case, considerable inconvenience is likely to be caused.